“It was a very difficult - a very heavy trial,” she said. Austin would not discuss the deliberations in detail, or say if there had been any initial holdouts. Juror Andrea Austin, a Sharon Springs resident who had lived in California at the time of the crash, said she and her fellow jurors took their role seriously. The jury had the option to find Hussain guilty of criminally negligent homicide if they determined that the recklessness required to convict on the manslaughter charge was not supported by evidence. Wednesday’s verdict arrived not long after the jury asked the judge to explain the difference between the two charges Hussain faced: second-degree manslaughter and the lesser offense of criminally negligent homicide.
UTM DEFINITION TRIAL
Andrea Austin, juror for Schoharie limo trial.The verdict comes more than four and a half years after the crash outside the Apple Barrel Cafe left dozens of families bereft, and eight months after a sudden judicial reversal in the case brought Hussain to trial following a scuttled no-jail plea deal that had been approved by Mallery. “I’m just heartbroken for everyone involved,” Kindlon said. Hussain’s father, a former FBI undercover operative who worked on several post-9/11 terrorism prosecutions, appears to have remained in Pakistan throughout the years since the crash despite his son’s legal travails. He said that after Hussain was taken away, he called Nauman’s father, Shahed Hussain, who sobbed on the other line from Pakistan. Kindlon said he sympathized with the families of the dead, as well as with his client. Lee Kindlon, Hussain’s attorney, said he would seek to have his client released from custody pending his appeal of the verdict.
“I want to thank the jury for doing an amazing job and listening to the evidence,” Mallery said. Schoharie County District Attorney Susan Mallery declined to answer questions as she and special prosecutor Frederick Rench left the courthouse. “He’s going now! He’s going now!” someone exclaimed. State Supreme Court Justice Peter Lynch, who presided over the trial, revoked Hussain’s bail and ordered him to the county jail. Hussain’s fiancée, Melissa Bell, ran crying out of the courtroom, while his older brother Haris held his head in his hands. The jury deliberated for less than six hours before agreeing with prosecutors that he had been reckless in allowing the vehicle to be on the road that day.įamilies of the victims reacted audibly and burst into tears as the first of 20 guilty verdicts was read aloud. Hussain, the operator of the limousine company that rented out the decrepit stretch limousine, faces five to 15 years in prison when he is sentenced on May 31. 6, 2018, limousine crash off a country road in Schoharie County that stands as the nation’s most deadly transportation incident in a decade. Hussain, 33, was convicted Wednesday afternoon on 20 counts of second-degree manslaughter - one for Savannah Bursese, her boyfriend Matthew Coons and the 18 other people who died in a Oct. So yeah … it gave me some kind of justice.”
“That was quite an impact, when I heard that,” Bursese said in an interview outside the Schoharie County courthouse.
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